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Building a brand that parents can count on.
GOMO has relied on competitive prices and strong Amazon reviews to sell our ride-on toys online. Selling through Amazon has been profitable, but has come at the expense of building brand loyalty and making sales through our own site.
GOMO would like to change that, but our website is hard to find, hard to navigate, and does not speak to user core needs.
HIGHER CONVERSION RATES START WITH HAPPY CUSTOMERS
THE CHALLENGE
Gomo has had great success selling through third party retailers like Amazon, but weak traffic and sales through our own website is losing us money and the opportunity to grow brand loyalty.
To win over skeptical customers and convert more sales on their website, GOMO needs:
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A new e-commerce website that is designed for the ways users shop for kids ride-ons
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A brand overhaul to legitimize GOMO and convince parents that GOMO cares about their child as much as we do
RESULTS
Working with a UX/UI designer, we developed a responsive ecommerce website that earns users’ trust by providing a reliable, sincere, and supportive experience.
USER INTERVIEWS SHOW THAT
PARENTS WANT TO SUPPORT A BRAND THAT SUPPORTS THEM
When the GOMO brand was originally conceived, it was built without formal user research. This led to nostalgia and exercise being misidentified as core user needs. By asking five GOMO customers about their experience shopping for ride-ons online we reassessed the brand and learned that what users really need is a partner that they can rely on and trust.
Each parent we spoke to, talked about how much they rely on their network of friends and family for advice and support. Similarly, the brands cited as most beloved were the ones that made their lives easier by going the extra mile.
COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
GOMO NEEDS TO SHOW THAT WE ARE REPUTABLE AND RELIABLE
Research showed that GOMO’s main competitors earn user trust by focusing on quality and reliability. This priority is evident in their site copy, using words like “deluxe” and “premium”, and in their visual design where smiling families tell the aspirational story of a happy childhood.
In structuring their interface and information architecture, all three ecommerce websites use similar patterns. Notably, they organize the shop by both age and product. By doing this, they cater to both users who are searching for a specific item and those more interested in browsing.
PERSONAS | USER JOURNEY STORYBOARD
GOMO'S USER IS A CARING PARENT
GOMO customers believe that the ride-ons they buy are a reflection of their love for their child. The kind of person that reads parenting blogs and joins parenting groups, they are responsible and caring, and make every effort to keep their child happy and healthy. This is why it so important that they feel reassured that GOMO’s ride-ons are reliable and safe.
To empathize with users and keep their needs front and center when making
design decisions, we crafted the Take Good Care Sahara Persona and got to
know her better with an Empathy Map.
Understanding where Sahara is coming from
USER FLOW, TASK FLOWS, SITEMAP
USERS NEED TO SHARE GIFT IDEAS WITH THE GRANDPARENTS
One of the main takeaways from our research was that many of GOMO’s sales come from grandparents buying ride-ons as gifts for their grandkids. While parents are still our primary user, because they are the ones researching and choosing what to buy, their flow is actually completed by sharing the product rather than purchasing it.
Keeping this in mind when mapping users’ journey through the website, we focused more on the importance of teaching users about GOMO products than other tasks, like checkout.
Confusingly, GOMO’s original site could only be reached by first going to the parent company’s homepage. This was a major barrier to users finding the brand, so we gave GOMO a separate site with a more direct information architecture.
INITIAL WIREFRAMES
BUILDING A MODULAR INTERFACE THAT CAN BE EASILY UPDATED
When setting out to design the user interface, we chose to employ modular patterns that could be mixed and matched. Having flexible design patterns was important because the site needed to be easy to update with seasonal content, sales, and an ever expanding lineup of products.
Making sure that there was ample space for brand messaging was also a priority, as users would be visiting our website to learn why they should trust GOMO.
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BRAND IDENTITY | STYLE TILE | LOGO
YELLOW IS FOR SUNSHINE, BLUE IS FOR SKY
Channeling the feeling and freedom of a carefree summer day, GOMO’s brand is bright and sunny. Lots of blues and yellows and warm whites are meant to evoke natural beauty of California where GOMO is headquarted, giving the brand a sense of style and place.
Carrying that fun and playfulness through to the logo, typography, and UI elements we built a useful Style Tile with a clearly defined brand language.
DESIGN ITERATIONS AND REVISIONS
LOGO CHANGES WERE REQUIRED TO MEET REAL WORLD CONSTRAINTS
While the initial logo worked well for use on the website, it fit awkwardly on some of GOMO’s products, like the balance bike and scooter. In order to make the logo fit and read more easily on frame tubing, some small but significant changes were necessary.
Changes to the logo:
1) The lowercase “g” was replaced with a capital “G” to make the height of the logo more uniform
2) The letters were all elongated along the x-axis in order to occupy more space on the frame
3) Small adjustments were made to the angles and lean of the letters to add a feeling of motion
ORIGINAL
REVISED
HIGH-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES | INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
CUTE DETAILS MAKE A FAMILY FRIENDLY EXPERIENCE
Using GOMO’s website is intended to feel like play. Witty calls to action that evoke family togetherness and belonging, in context brand images that don’t look staged, and cute illustrated details that bring the interface to life, speak to user needs and tell GOMO’s story.
The copy was also carefully considered to make sure that it clearly and compellingly communicates information that users are coming to GOMO’s website to learn.
REFLECTIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND NEXT STEPS
GOMO'S FUTURE IS BRIGHT
GOMOs brand and online store with this new design gives customers the supportive and sincere shopping experience that they need to trust GOMO. Simple but profound changes to the information architecture make GOMO”s ride-ons easier to find and far more likely for customers to buy. To further build customer loyalty and refine the website we should take the following steps:
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Conduct a photoshoot to generate new brand images
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Recruit a skilled web designer who can execute parts of the design that are too challenging or time consuming for inhouse team
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Generate media to add to the Kidtalk section so parents can use GOMO as a resource
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Use site analytics to continue iterating and improving the user experience
